COMPARISON OF MERCURY VAPOR PRESSURE OF SILVER AMALGAM-BASED ELECTRODE MATERIALS USING AAS

Nowadays, several amalgam-based electrodes are commonly used in electrochemistry as a less toxic alternative to mercury electrodes. Therefore, a comparison of the mercury vapor pressure of several silver amalgam-based electrode materials with the mercury vapor pressure of liquid mercury and of dental amalgam using AAS was done in this study. Method was optimized to get the highest mercury signal. Results showed that the mercury vapor pressure of amalgam-based electrode materials not containing liquid mercury is far lower than the mercury vapor pressure of liquid mercury (about two orders of signal magnitude) and comparable with mercury vapor pressure of dental amalgam.